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> Someone somewhere once said that cannabis makes it fun to be bored, and that's the real danger with it. It's not toxic, it's not terribly addictive but you get addicted to feeling good when doing nothing at all.

I think that was South Park

Yep, Randy Marsh.

A lot of people have had problems with alcohol too and that’s not illegal.

Speaking as someone who definitely doesn't want alcohol banned, this is kind of a specious argument. Bad-for-you-X is not banned therefore bad-for-you-Y should not be banned either, is not really sensible. A better argument, should you wish to produce one, is to describe the societal benefit you get that offsets the potential negative consequences. Or perhaps you can explain how banning does not produce the desired societal effect in the first place (I'm visiting Canada at the moment and it's amusing how legalisation of cannabis seems to have led to a dramatically reduced availability...) I think these kinds of arguments are going to be more effective in getting your message across.

> Someone somewhere once said that cannabis makes it fun to be bored, and that's the real danger with it. It's not toxic, it's not terribly addictive but you get addicted to feeling good when doing nothing at all.

Well, like social media or watching TV. It is not clear what is your point.

It's just the middle paths fallacy. Acting as if you "see the perspective" of the lawmakers because you used to use the substance but are now evolved enough to see its triflings. But when the triflings are cheetos eating and alleviating boredom, any legalese doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Marijuana is simply illegal because of history and bad leadership in government. Things are changing - but make no mistake, whatever vices MJ has are not any reason for the law to be involved

> whatever vices MJ has are not any reason for the law to be involved

first of all you are relativizing because you are not even sure. And then the law get's involved in much more trivial issues like littering. That's oranges to apples, but the point is I guess that law exerts control not just to protect the active individual.

Those are also harmful when taken to excess.

Breathing oxygen is harmful when taken to excess. Try breathing 100% oxygen at 33ft underwater and you very likely won’t live long. The point I’m making is something can be BOTH very vital to our health as well as a cause of death if misused. Hence outright prohibitions of things that “can be bad if misused” is just silly.

The argument isn’t in favor of prohibition; the argument is that marijuana has risks.

The argument also isn’t, I think, that marijuana, or television, or social media, is “very vital to our health”. So I’m not super clear on what you’re arguing against, here.

> The argument isn’t in favor of prohibition

Then you didn’t do a very good job of communicating your argument, as it could easily be assumed you were against it existing.

> the argument is that marijuana has risks.

As does almost everything in the world, especially when misused. I gave one concrete example of this, happy to provide a lot more. Sugar has significant health risks when consumed in excess, there’s a world wide obesity pandemic in fact, should we ban sugar or otherwise inhibit it’s consumption?

> The argument also isn’t, I think, that marijuana, or television, or social media, is “very vital to our health”.

This shows your lack of knowledge on the subject. For those with Crohn’s disease (a debilitating auto-immune disease), CBD is more effective at controlling symptoms than any Rx drug or diet plan. The most commonly prescribed drug is Humira and costs patients / insurance $11,500 per month (assuming weekly injections). The company behind Humira has made more money on Humira sales (it’s closing in on $100B in sales) than any other prescription drug in history (including Viagra). Yet it’s not as effective as taking CBD when it is properly extracted and can be done so at a significantly lower patient cost.

I’m not advocating for the “CBD head shop” explosion we are seeing, as many sell utter crap, and in rare cases crap so bad it could be dangerous. I am advocating instead for us ending a century old racism influenced law and getting proper labs and real scientists working on quality products for all.

You are responsible for the assumptions you make. You also make a good argument for CBD as a prescription drug.

> You are responsible for the assumptions you make.

Very true! But the one who leads someone to make a false assumption with vague statement on a thread with other folks advocating for that, also share some culpability.

> You also make a good argument for CBD as a prescription drug.

Yup, I am. But until we can overturn almost a century of regressive policies and public perception based on a terribly corrupt “war on drugs”, not likely to happen. Sometimes we have to go radically the other direction before we can then correct course into the middle ground that always should’ve been.

Is there anything that is not harmful in excess?

The dose makes the poison.

Moderation?

Too much moderation causes atrophy

And just like all of those, everything should be enjoyed responsibly.

Cannabis can quite easily be abused when just consumed "out of boredom", which sadly tends to happen quite often.

Imho it should enable or enhance what one does, and not be the sole reason one does anything at all.

I think people should eat dinner before dessert, but that's not really my prerogative except at my own dinner table. If someone wants to consume cannabis "out of boredom" that's completely fine.

I didn't see the comment you replied to as an attack on personal freedom, but as a commentary on what they think is and is not a poor life choice. Of course you're free to do as you wish with your own body and mind, provided it's legal and doesn't infringe on others' freedoms. But there's no denying that a lot of things you could choose to do to yourself would be pretty stupid by any reasonable standard.

Just because you can get stoned whenever you feel bored doesn't mean you should. The fact that nobody has the right to tell other people what to do to themselves shouldn't preclude discussion.

> you get addicted to feeling good when doing nothing at all

That I will say again and again is a placebo effect, perhaps mediated through some active ingredients, the taste, or just lack of oxygen, but this euphoric image that it has, that's mediated through social engineering.

What you say may be true of CBD, I don’t know, but your quote is from the grandparent comment’s description of cannabis, i.e. marijuana. It is an accurate description of that drug’s effect.

Nah, you don't smoke CBD so OP is clearly talking about pot. "Pot is all placebo effect" is a novel, wacky theory I've never heard from the legalization opposition before, so that's sorta fun.

CBD can be and is commonly smoked, it can be in flower form or concentrate

Brah, IDK what your street corner pharmacist told you, but if you're smoking "CBD flowers", you're smoking weed.

Not necessarily. You can buy concentrates to vape that are very CBD rich and contain almost no THC (<0.1%).

As JUUL has been advertising, vaping is not smoking. That's a whole different thing. You could also aerosolize CBD oil particles with a mister and breath them in. That's not smoking "CBD flower".

CBD flower is just jank weed that has a higher CBD and lower THC levels. If that's what you want to burn, fine, but that doesn't make it not weed.

Bruh, it's almost as if hemp and "weed" are both cannabis plants ;)

Please don't do this here.

No, CBD is most commonly used in oils, tinctures, and salves.

Where do you think CBD oil comes from? (Hint: it's the flower of the hemp plant)

GP was talking about how it’s commonly consumed, not how it’s made. I was clarifying on the actual way it’s commonly used.

It's also commonly consumed by smoking the flower.

THC (and smoking marijuana) show no scientific evidence of chemical dependence (aka, physical addiction.)

That's to say, THC is less physiologically addictive than nicotine, alcohol, caffeine -- even cheese.

To add one more to your list, “sugar”.

It's trivially not an accurate description, if you read the comment again that I quoted from. If we resort to simplification, I would say stoners feel good because they do nothing. But some feel paranoid, because they maybe want to do something and they can't manage. I mean, the inability to do anything demanding, that's actually an accurate description of the effect. Whether people feel good about it or not is a coin toss.

That's just totally ridiculous.

Cannabis clearly effect the cannabinoid reseptors.

I think the argument is about what exactly those receptors do and which compounds have which affinities for which separate cb receptor complexes

More specifically (but hopefully not too specific and turn away lay folks), THC affects the CB1 receptors and CBD affects the CB2 receptors. CB1 is mostly in the brain / nervous system and thus when modulated gives you a euphoric effect (the being “high” sensation). CB2 however is more related to the immune system and your gut. It thus when modulated has pain killing and other therapeutic effects. For those with auto-immune diseases, modulating the CB2 receptors with unadulterated CBD/CBN/CBG are very beneficial and doesn’t give you the “high” sensation commonly associated with MMJ. Same goes for those who have chronic muscle and joint pain. And unlike opioids, isn’t habit forming and mostly is side effect free.

> hopefully not too specific

> CB1 is mostly in the brain / nervous system

I was worried for a sec, but nope, quite the opposite. Could you be a little more specific?

> ... are very beneficial and doesn’t give ...

Look, everytime I post this it gets a handful of down votes and nefarious comments like yours from people who would have recommended cigarettes for a cold and all kind of ailments. Heard the term "snakeoil"? It burns because it affects the heat receptors. Doesn't mean it's actually warm.

Please don't call names in arguments, regardless of how wrong another comment is. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Your comment would be fine without the first sentence.